


A Crew Bonding Activity

by gaemmel



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: F/M, Lalli is jealous, M/M, Truth or Dare, everyone is a little too eager to comply honestly, other characters kissing that are not mentioned as pairings here, slightly OOC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 06:03:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8389975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaemmel/pseuds/gaemmel
Summary: The crew has nothing to do on a rainy night and plays Truth or Dare. For some of them, it's just fun, for other's, it gets kind of emotional. Emil/Lalli is definitely the only relationship that is put real focus on here.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I am not even sure if posting this is a good idea. But I had the thought in my head, wrote it all down and now there it is, so for the ones of you who enjoy this kind of folly, I can just as well post it.  
> Have fun, I guess!

The rain was drumming on the cat tank with steady fingers. It was pitch-dark outside, although it was barely six o’clock. Sigrun was at the window, staring at the rain as if she could scare it away by looking.

“Damn that weather!” she yelled and flopped into the driver’s seat, pissed. “Now we have to sit inside the whole evening!”

The others couldn’t actually be bothered to hate the weather as much. It had been another long day and everyone was grateful that it was unlikely that anything else exhausting was going to happen today.

“We – we could play something…” Reynir suggested. Tuuri – the only one who understood him – grinned. “Yeah, let’s do that!” she said in Swedish and pointed at Reynir, who startled.

“Do what?” Emil asked. He was sitting on his bunk bed, underneath his cot, a sleeping Lalli.

“Play something!” Tuuri said. Sigrun titled her head, she seemed interested.

“And what are you suggesting?” she asked.

“We have a deck of cards somewhere in the back.” Mikkel stated.

“Urgh, I’m sick of cards!” Sigrun waved dismissively. She always lost at card games because she wasn’t patient enough, and she had the unpleasant habit of flipping the table afterwards. Every damn time.

“We always used to play Truth or Dare after cleansing.” Emil said quietly. He actually thought the idea of playing this kind of game with the crew very dangerous, but he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

“Great idea!” Sigrun stood up, came over to the sleeping room and patted Emil on the shoulder.

“I like your ideas, man!” She sat down on her bunk.

“Come on, everyone, we’re playing Truth or Dare!” she commanded.

Mikkel remained seated at the radio station.

“Mikkel!” Sigrun yelled.

“No.” he answered.

Sigrun gave an annoyed sigh. “That’s an order!”

Mikkel shook his head. “This is not work. You can’t command me to play any childish games with you when I’m off-duty.”

Sigrun sighed even louder. “You are such a boring person; why did we even bring you?”

Mikkel muttered something that couldn’t be understood in the bunk room, but eventually he got up and sat down next to Emil. Reynir placed himself on the floor, to Sigrun’s feet, Tuuri sat opposite of Emil with her back to the door.

“What about sleepyhead?” Sigrun asked. “He can’t miss out on a crew bonding activity like this! Plus, he can’t go outside tonight anyway, I mean, look at this outside.” She pointed to the window in the front, where the rain was still blinding everyone’s sight.

So Emil was tasked with the mission to wake up Lalli. He wasn’t too comfortable having to do it, but four pairs of eyes were watching, so there was no escaping it. Emil reached underneath the bunk and carefully patted whatever of Lalli he could find, hoping that he wasn’t stabbing him an eye out. Lalli gave out a few sleepy sounds and asked something. Tuuri answered him, a few Finnish sentences were exchanged back and forth between them. Emil was just about to pull his hand back, when Lalli grabbed it and used it to pull himself out from under the cot, crawling out of his sleeping space and sitting down on the floor, next to Emil’s feet. Emil felt incredibly lucky when he realized that he would be able to pet Lalli’s hair all evening from behind without having to be too obvious about it.

“Everyone assembled! Cool!” Sigrun looked around and grabbed a half-full bottle filled with antiseptic. Mikkel voiced some weak protest that was shushed immediately.

Emil placed his hand gently in Lalli’s neck and started to caress it, which made Lalli shiver, but in the good way. The others mostly pretended not to have seen anything of this.

“Okay, Emil!” Sigrun said. “Explain how this works!”

“Um.” Emil said, his hand stopping in Lalli’s hair. “One person spins the bottle and whoever the bottle is pointing on has the option to either answer a question or do a dare, posed to them by the person who spun the bottle.”

“Any questions? No? Great. Let’s do this!” Sigrun took the antiseptic bottle and spun it around on the floor widely. It landed on Tuuri, who bit her lip.

“Ooookay.” Sigrun said. “Truth or Dare?”

“Um, truth, please.” Sigrun snorted. “Boring. Hmpf.” And without much further hesitation, she asked: “Are you a virgin?”

Tuuri swallowed hard.

“Maybe you should have started with someone lighter.” Mikkel said, who clearly felt bad for Tuuri.

“No, it’s fine.” Tuuri said. “Yes, I am.” She tried hard to look not too embarrassed about it, and no one commented on it.

Sigrun handed Tuuri the bottle. She spun it around, less wild than Sigrun and it landed on Reynir.

“What am I supposed to do?” Reynir asked in Icelandic.

“You have to either answer a question or do something that I tell you.” Tuuri replied. “Truth or Dare?”

“Um, Dare?” Reynir said.

“What did he say?!” Sigrun shouted impatiently.

“Dare.” Tuuri translated, and the others couldn’t help but cheer. The silly rules were already kind of changing their mood.

“Ask him to open that braid and wear his hair open for the night!” Emil said, who had always been unnerved by the messy way Reynir braided his hair. And maybe kind of pissed off that he had been out-haired by some random guy who wasn’t even supposed to be here.

Tuuri translated Emil’s request to Reynir, who blushed, but nooded and took the band out of his hair, then taking a while to undo the braid with his fingers. Everyone watched silently.

In the end, Reynir’s bright red hair flowed messily, but beautifully around his head, shoulders and down until it touched the ground beneath him. It was uncombed and a little wavy because it had been in that braid for such a long time. Reynir nervously raked through it with his fingers, blushing.

“I never wear them open like that, I probably look kinda silly…” he mumbled.

“Don’t worry.” Mikkel said. And this sentence, coming from calm, honest Mikkel, actually made Reynir feel good. The two of them smiled at each other briefly.

Tuuri handed Reynir the bottle. “You need to spin it and think of a new task for whoever the bottle points to.” Reynir nodded and spun.

It landed on Lalli. Reynir swallowed hard, everyone else stopped in their tracks. Lalli stared at Reynir. Emil gentle removed his hand from Lalli’s hair as if he could get caught between the tension emitting from the two other boys.

“Uh.. oh god I am so sorry… does he want a truth or a dare?” Reynir asked meekly.

“Truth or Dare, Lalli?” Tuuri asked her cousin.

“Dare.” Lalli spat out coldly. Tuuri translated back.

“Dare?” Reynir yelped. “Uh, oh gosh, I don’t know… maybe ask the others? I don’t wanna decide, oh god, this is really too much, I am so scared he will hate me, Tuuri…” While Tuuri was busy reassuring poor Reynir that it would be fine, Mikkel already translated back to the others: “Lalli chose a dare, and Reynir wants advice.”

“Ask him if he’s into boys or girls!” Sigrun yelled.

Emil looked at her. “Who still cares about that kind of thing?!” he snapped, a little too harsh.

“And that from a woman who is a captain.” Mikkel seconded.

“Huh? What’s me being captain got to do with anything?” Sigrun asked.

Lalli asked Tuuri what they were talking, and she translated, while Mikkel told Reynir what’s going on.

“Also, asking him something is not a dare.” Tuuri replied and ended the conflict like that.

“Ask him to kiss Emil!” Sigrun shouted. Everyone stared at her. Emil was bright red. “Oh god, no, you can’t ask him that! Please, no!”

He didn’t want it, not like that. He didn’t want Lalli to be forced to do it. If Lalli ever wanted to kiss Emil, Emil wanted to him to do it on his own account…

But it was too late. Tuuri had translated it. Lalli nodded. All eyes flew over to Lalli, who turned around on his spot, so he showed everyone else his back and was turned to Emil, kneeling in between Emil’s legs. The pose was incredibly suggesting, and Emil was as red as a tomato. Lalli rested his forearms on Emil’s legs.

“Lalli, you don’t have to…” he protested quietly, but he knew that he was already down with everything that was going to happen. Seeing Lalli from up that close was just too inviting. Lalli placed his lips on Emil’s without further hesitation. Emil closed his eyes and enjoyed every nanosecond of it, although he couldn’t forget his surroundings. Lalli’s lips were dry from the cold outside, but still so soft and so wanting against his own. They pulled back too early and way too late at the same time. The others cheered.

Lalli sat down beneath Emil again. He took a deep breath, then he was already back in his usual calm state. Not so Emil. He felt hot, he could feel the blood rushing through his veins too quickly, he felt like he was going to pass out for a brief moment until he realized he had stopped breathing. He took a few gulps of air and tried to calm his heartbeat like that. _How embarrassing! It was clear to see for everyone how much this meant to me._

Lalli took the bottle from the ground and spun it, continuing the game he didn’t really want to play as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But he could feel Emil’s legs still tremble behind him, and he knew that his own calmness was merely a mask, too. Lalli wondered when he was going to be able to do that again.

The bottle pointed to Mikkel this time, who stiffened. Lalli looked at Mikkel.

“Truth or Dare?” Tuuri asked.

“Truth, please.” Mikkel said gravely.

“Booooring!” Sigrun shouted.

Tuuri translated for Lalli, who sunk into thought for a moment. “He should say how he feels about everyone in the crew.” He said. He was content with that request. It would be interesting to see what that provoked between Mikkel and Sigrun, who were behaving like divorced parents having to take care of their children together most of the time. Lalli might be unable to express himself most of time, but he did understand a lot that was going on between the others.

Tuuri translated. Mikkel pressed his lips together and shot Lalli a long look.

“I admire Lalli for his hard work and dedication, though I doubt that I will ever be able to understand him fully. I am often amused by his behaviour. I came to enjoy Reynir’s company while attending my duties.” He took the time to shoot a hint of a smile at Reynir – who of course had to wait until Tuuri was ready to translate. Right now she just sat in awe.

“I am also very amused by Emil and his approach to life. But I also he his struggle and that he is genuinely trying. I find that admirable, too. I came to appreciate Tuuri’s expertise and her cheery manner. If this is a babysitter job I am doing, she is the least complicated child I am watching over.” Emil wasn’t – as it was usually the case with Mikkel – not sure if he just had been complimented or insulted. Tuuri giggled in delight, then leaned over to translate for Reynir, who smiled.

At last, Mikkel turned to face Sigrun.

“And, at last, I have come to respect and trust our glorious captain Eide, whose courage I sometimes mistake for recklessness and whose ability to lead I have failed to see in the beginning.” Sigrun grinned widely. “And who is also loud, impatient and a huge pain in the ass sometimes.”

They all had a good laugh together about that, Reynir just laughing because he found it contagious, Lalli joining by showing half a smile, then urgently asking Tuuri to translate for him, too. For once, he was genuinely wishing he could understand what was said around him.

After they all had calmed down and the translations had been shared with everyone, Mikkel took the bottle and spun it once again. Of course, to make the circle perfect, the turn had to be Sigrun’s.

“Dare!” Sigrun shot immediately.

Mikkel nodded and looked at the others, awaiting their requests.

“Can she dance for us?” Emil asked, mischief in his eyes. He still wanted to get back to her for having to kiss Lalli in front of everyone.

“Don’t be silly.” Mikkel said.

“Tell her to take off her shirt.” Lalli said. Tuuri’s head turned. “Lalli! Why would you ask such a thing? That’s really mean!”

Lalli looked at his cousin with a pout. “She shouldn’t have made me and Emil kiss.”

“What is little twig on about?” Sigrun wanted to know.

Tuuri shook her head. “I don’t want to translate that.”

“Come on, how bad can it be?” Sigrun grinned. “Is he pissed at me for making him kiss his crush? Hey, without me they wouldn’t ever have got it on!”

“Don’t say that!” Emil yelled. Everyone was silent for a second.

“Tell me what Lalli suggested.” Sigrun’s tone of voice didn’t leave Tuuri any choice.

“He said you should take off your shirt.” She whispered, blushing.

“What?” Sigrun furrowed her brows. “You guys have seen me without a shirt before. What’s the deal?” She shrugged out of her jacket and pulled the tight black undershirt over her head. She was wearing a special protecting black bra underneath. It wasn’t very revealing, it was meant to warm, hold the breasts firm in place and give this part of the body a little special protection. Tuuri had been given the same one in the beginning of the expedition.

It was awkward how everyone was suddenly hyperaware of Sigrun not wearing a shirt, even though there was nothing really to see.

“What did your cousin think he could achieve with this?” Sigrun asked Tuuri, who was still red in the face and uncomfortable.

“Um, I think he really is angry at you for making kiss Emil…” she revealed. Sigrun shrugged it off.

“At least he finally got some game. Let’s carry on.” She took the bottle and held it up.

“Special round! The person that the bottle points on has to kiss the person who spun it.” And without waiting for anyone to have an opinion about this, she spun the bottle again. Everyone watched, half-excited, half-scared. Tuuri whispered this over to Lalli and Reynir.

It pointed to Emil, who gave out a sigh. Once again, he removed his hand from Lalli’s neck (he had started to caress it again some time earlier), just that it earned him a hiss from Lalli this time.

He got up, Sigrun did, too. The others could just stare. Emil was a good deal smaller than Sigrun, which angered him when she visibly had to lean down until their lips met. Hers were firm and a little violent, his were soft and unsure. They broke apart after only two seconds. Tuuri had broken into some kind of hysterical giggling. Sigrun went back to her place with a triumphant smile, Emil rather confused. When he set back down, he found that Lalli had moved out of his reach.

_Is he pissed at me for kissing someone else? That would be very cute and very silly at the same time. It’s not like I exactly jumped at her._

Emil got himself the bottle, took a steading breath and spun it once again. It stopped at Reynir.

They both almost simultaneously swallowed and stared at each other.

Emil realized after a few seconds that Reynir was not going to get up and claim his kiss, so Emil stood up once again. When he closed the distance between him and Reynir with a step, he could see Lalli’s face underneath him. He looked like someone had just twisted a knife in his bowels.

But Emil couldn’t back down now. He sat beside Reynir, who looked both nervous and curious at the same time. Emil swallowed once again before the two boys leaned into each other and kissed. Emil liked this one much better than the kiss with Sigrun. Reynir’s lips were full and deliciously soft, he tasted good, too. They even started to move their lips against each other’s a little, before Sigrun cheered and they took this as a sign and parted.

Emil gave Reynir a small smile and went back to his spot. Apparently Lalli had moved even further away, which made the warm and pleasant post-kiss feeling in Emil’s guts turn into a painful heart throb. He would have liked to touch Lalli’s hand, or pet his hair, whisper something to him, somehow make sure he understood that no matter how many people in this crew he would kiss tonight, Lalli’s kiss was the only one that had meant something to him.

The next spin ended on Tuuri, who shrieked a little and eyed Reynir, who seemed as overwhelmed as her. Somehow, that was the cue for Lalli to flip it. He got up and left the room without another word, and no shouting from Tuuri could bring him back. The door of the tank snapped shut with a thud when Lalli disappeared into the cold, dark night.

Silence.

“Are we still playing?” Tuuri asked.

“You were promised a kiss, go get it, gurl.” Sigrun said, but her heart wasn’t completely in it.

“Emil?” she said.

“Yes?” Emil startled and sat upright after he had been sunk into worry and thought about Lalli going outside in this weather.

“Search the close vicinity of the tank for your lover-boy. He can’t be that far away by now. Don’t do anything stupid.” She ordered.

“Sure.” Emil got up and grabbed his jacket, then stepped outside of the tank. As soon as the door was closed behind him, a hand grabbed him and yanked him to the side. It was Lalli. He drew Emil close and closer, until they kissed again.

Emil wrapped his arms around the other boy, pressing their bodies together against the tank. Their lips hungrily nipped each other and their tongues danced for a while before Emil’s tongue entered Lalli’s mouth, which made both of them gasp for air.

When they broke apart, Emil felt dizzy again. Their faces were only centimetres apart from each other.

“Lalli…” he said, one hand caressing the other boy’s face, while his other arm was wrapped around Lalli’s body. “I didn’t want to kiss Sigrun, or Reynir. It was just a game.” He tried to speak slowly, hoping that some part of his sentences would reach the other.

“I only want to kiss _you_.”

Lalli stared at him intensely. He leaned in for another kiss, but it was only a short one, soft, reassuring. Lalli looked strained.  He held a finger up and put it to his mouth.

“Just me.” He said. Emil nodded furiously in response.

“Just you. Nobody else.” He replied. Lalli smiled and nodded, too.

The two held each other close for another moment, then went back inside to the safety of their tank. Right until the moment they opened the door to the sleeping room, they held hands. It felt like a promise.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Have mercy on my poor, Emil/Lalli-infected soul.
> 
> Oh, I also find it worth mentioning that I actually "played truth or dare with myself" while writing this - I hovered my finger over their names on a piece of paper blindly to choose the next person. So I didn't really choose who the bottle landed on. I just chose the tasks. And my own doom.


End file.
